


Almost Home

by alliterate



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-24
Updated: 2014-10-24
Packaged: 2018-02-19 15:53:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2394242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alliterate/pseuds/alliterate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Metroplex is safe and tenuous peace has been restored, but Windblade and Chromia still have some things to work through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Almost Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blaster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blaster/gifts).



> Heads up for alcohol (or, well, oil) and drinking, and for spoilers through _Windblade_ #4. Huge thanks and one million smooches go to [Ingrid](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Stonestrewn) for reading this over and helping me beat it into shape.

"I hate Cybertron," Chromia's voice says. Her footsteps echo, loud, as she approaches from behind Windblade.

Windblade shrugs. She stays where she's seated, perched high atop one of Metroplex's tallest towers, and watches the sun rise over the city below.

There's a pause. Chromia sits next to her, leaving a few hand-widths of space between their bodies. "I guess you already know that, though."

"I do."

"Windblade, I'm sorry."

"I know." A voice in her head berates her for being ungracious, so she adds, "Sorry. I do know. I'm just thinking."

There are a few kliks of charged quiet. Windblade can hear little but the city noise below and the soft _whirr_ of Chromia’s fans. Finally, Chromia says, “I wanted to inform you that weapons training will resume tomorrow at 0600. You asked for space, and I've given you that, but I'm still your bodyguard. And we _are_ still in hostile territory.”

Windblade nods. “Got it.” She leans back on her hands and tips her face up to the sky. Her systems are humming pleasantly at the intake of such clean air, and she shutters her optics, focusing instead on the gentle feedback from the wind against her faceplates.

It isn’t long before a series of sounds signify Chromia taking her leave. Windblade tries not to let it bother her. She wants to stay there, taking in Cybertron, for a little longer yet.

*

Without deciding to, she visits Metroplex. She has a to do list for the day, but the sun has settled high above her and her wings take her to Metroplex's neural chamber instead. She isn't surprised.

“Hey, Metroplex. It’s me.” The lights flashing across his brain multiply tenfold at the sound of her voice; that old, familiar sensation, awe mixed with something tender, flares inside her. “How are you feeling?”

A series of lights and symbols flicker before her. Windblade scans them, sorts through them as quickly as she can – power levels, core temperature problems, snatches of something old and beautiful in Metroplex's mind. One datum in particular catches her eye, and she frowns.

“Ventilation's dropping? Again? That doesn’t sound good.” 

She calls up one of his panels and retrieves the report on his ventilation systems. Sure enough, there’s a power drop in sector four; it’s not steep, but it’s also not good. 

“That shouldn’t be happening,” she murmurs. “I can probably reroute the power from sector nine for now, but if it persists I might have to grab Chromia and head in there to look.”

Metroplex zeroes in on that. _Wind-voice…angry?_

Windblade glances up at his brain, startled. She pats one of his terminals. “Not angry, big guy," she says, returning to the panel and executing the reroute. "Don’t worry.”

The numbers equalize across the screen. There's a soft hum. _Ventilation system stable at 80% functioning_ , Metroplex says, and Windblade's shoulders relax minutely. _Why angry?_

“ _Not_ angry. Just…a little frustrated. Not with you. Let's hope filtration stays stable, okay?”

_Care. Car[e/ing]. Will care._

She stares at the dancing pattern of lights. This is something she hadn't understood before they merged: how strange it is for Metroplex, how hard he works to divide between him and her, I vs. we, so she can understand. His algorithm for verb tense is the closest he can get, sometimes, to conveying a vast concept in Windblade-sized chunks. It isn't perfect, but she understands, mostly. She thinks Nautica would be better at this.

"I know." Her voice, embarrassingly, comes out a little staticky; she clears her vocalizer and tries again. "I know. Thank you. I care, too. About you _and_ her."

Another hum, long and pleasant. Metroplex continues to run stats at her. He reports the places he's hurting, the places he's starting to heal. He sings her poetry far, far older than her. She watches and listens, and she gives herself up to prayer, to hope that he can heal. That it is not futile yet.

Windblade slips after some time into a sort of reverie, listening and praying, and it's only her low-energon alert that shakes her from it. She's surprised to find night has fallen. She stands and stretches and says her goodbyes to Metroplex, hoping her words convey the breadth of the affection she holds for him. His lights continue to flash at her, and she thinks he understands.

*

Morning comes. She rises and goes to her lookout point – more out of habit, now, than a need to pretend she's somewhere else. She misses Caminus and thinks she always will, but she's beginning to like the steady buzz of city life on Cybertron.

Dawn is coming earlier and earlier to Cybertron at this point in the stellar cycle, and it's leaving her with a lot of empty time to fill. She takes in the sunrise and still arrives for weapons training before Chromia. When Chromia arrives, veering around the corner like a cop in a high speed chase, Windblade has her sword drawn and ready.

Chromia transforms with a hard smile and draws her axe. "Be on your guard," she says, and she lunges.

Windblade fights the impulse to jump back – _Conserve your energy_ , says a voice in her head that sounds annoyingly like her old hand-to-hand instructor – and instead pulls her arm up to block Chromia's strike at the forearm. She knocks Chromia's arm up and away from her. Chromia immediately turns her wrist to bring the blade back down, more swing than stab this time, and there's a sharp _clang_ as Windblade deflects it with her own sword. She drives it away from her, across Chromia's body, trying to force a hole in Chromia's defense, but Chromia uses the momentum to turn and aim for Windblade's side, a strike Windblade barely manages to block.

It continues that way for a while: Chromia attacks, Windblade blocks. Windblade's energy drains from her rapidly, which is likely Chromia's intent. _End it fast_ , she thinks, _this is why they tell you to end it fast_. 

Finally, she spots an opening: Chromia's optics drop to Windblade's lower body, telegraphing her next move, and Windblade takes the moment of distraction to jump in, swing her sword high, and shove Chromia back against a wall, using the blade to pin her arm – and axe – to the wall beside her.

"See?" Windblade says, letting herself grin. "I told you I'm not helpless."

She has a split second to register Chromia's smirk before Chromia makes a fist with her free hand and swings it down, hammer-like, to connect with the delicate joints of Windblade's wrist. Windblade's fingers jolt open and her sword clatters to the ground. Chromia slams her elbow into Windblade's chest plating and shoves her into the wall, swinging her axe around to pin her. 

"And yet you still can't remember not to let yourself get within disarming range," Chromia says, their faces so close everything is blurry while Windblade's optics desperately refocus. When they do, all she sees is Chromia.

Her spark pulses, hot and urgent. She attributes it to the frustration humming all through her body, the way it does every time Chromia beats her like this. "Fine," she says through gritted teeth. "You win again."

Chromia steps away and shifts her axe to one hand. "You're getting better, Windblade," she offers. "You just need to be more aware of the space around you. You get too caught up in—"

Windblade cuts her off. "I get it." Some part of her mind tells her she's being rude, uncharitable, but she ignores it. "I'll do better next time. Lesson over?"

A frown. "Yes, but this is—"

"Good. I have things to do." Windblade sheaths her weapon, slips past Chromia, and leaves without turning back.

*

It isn't a lie; she always has things to do. Windblade tracks down Waspinator to thank him properly for his help, and talks for a bit with Metroplex. She stays away from Starscream, because Chromia would kill Windblade with her bare hands if she went within twenty mechanometers of him without backup. And when dusk falls, she finds herself at Maccaddam's.

"Hey," Blurr's voice greets her, "it's the bot of the hour! What'll it be, Windblade?"

A chorus of other voices, some enthusiastic and others sounding a little dazed, greet her as she takes a seat at the bar. Slug pokes Blurr hard in the shoulder and says, "Come on, Blurr, she saved all our lives. Give her one on the house."

Blurr laughs and starts pouring her something small and green — "Not that I don't appreciate your presence, Windblade," he's saying, "but at this rate your heroics are gonna put me out of business." 

Windblade frowns at both of them. "I actually almost got you all _killed_. I was here to apologize. Well, to thank you, but also apologize."

"Did you?" Blurr grins, sets the drink before her, and taps the side of his head. "Can't quite recall. Bad short term memory, remember?"

"I'd say it's Starscream who almost got us killed," Tall Tankor offers from the other side of the bar, rousing up a round of grumbled agreements.

"Yeah, if it hadn't been you, he'd have turned on us over something else," another voice adds.

Slug glares at her. He nods at her drink. "You gonna drink that or what?"

Windblade looks around at them all. Most of them are smiling. She shakes her head a little, just to herself, and throws back the drink.

Almost instantly, her core temperature starts to rise. Her gustatory sensors trigger a series of alerts and she dismisses them. Her digits are warm and loose. "That is _strong_ ," she gasps.

Blurr laughs and moves on to greet whoever has just entered the bar. Slug mutters, "Camien lightweights," and takes a large gulp of his own drink.

Everything gets a little fuzzy after that. She has another drink. She talks to them. She lets herself unwind, her lower back struts releasing tension she didn't know was there as she listens to these bots talk about their days, their lives, their stories about the war she missed. Sky-Byte rises at one point to recite a poem he's been working on, seeking feedback, and she doesn't understand it, but she cheers for him anyway.

A few cycles later, Windblade is a little more sober, but still not _sober_ — she's loose and happy and listening to one of Fizzle's monologues that seem to last for joors and go nowhere. ("They'd have loved you on the Lost Light, Windblade, you know Ultra Magnus? Ultra Magnus told me once that...")

"Chromia!" Blurr shouts over her head, and her bright mood evaporates without a trace. 

She turns carefully on her stool, and sure enough Chromia is striding across the room toward her, bowling past more than a few of the bar's regulars on her way. 

"Windblade." Chromia stops in front of her and puts a hand on her shoulder. "I've been looking for you."

Windblade frowns, trying to read Chromia's expression. _Chromia's angry_ , she thinks, then: _Why is Chromia angry?_ I'm _angry._ "Here I am."

Chromia expels a huff of heated air. "I can see that. Next time you storm off, could you please remember to tell your bodyguard where to find you?"

"Right, because you're such a great bodyguard." She'd meant to mutter that to herself, but it comes out _loud_. She winces, and Chromia's face tightens.

"All right, come on. Outside. How much does she owe you?" This last is directed at Blurr, and Windblade vaguely registers Shanix changing hands before Chromia gets Windblade's upper arm in an iron grip and hauls her to her feet. She drags Windblade across the room and out the door.

Once they reach the dark quiet of the street, Chromia lets Windblade go. Windblade shakes her arm indignantly, like she'd been the one to wrench it from Chromia's grasp. "What?" she says.

"We need to talk about this, and I'm not putting it off anymore. Windblade, if you want me to leave, I will. You gave me the choice. I chose to stay. I want to keep you safe, but you need to let me."

The cold air had been a sobering shock to Windblade's system, but now her mind starts spinning again. Still, she knows what Chromia means. "I'm trying to." She lowers her voice. "It's a little difficult, though, when the only person I trusted on this planet turned out to be the one who betrayed me."

Something changes in Chromia's expression, there and gone so fast Windblade can't begin to decipher it. "I'm sorry. I know that isn't enough. But right now, with all this— this punishing me, you aren't letting me do my job."

"Your job? You—" Windblade looks around, but of course, she can hardly spot potential spies in this dark. She settles for, " _Three people_ , Chromia."

"Windblade." Chromia is holding her hands still at her sides. Carefully. "I know. I can't atone for that, but… I thought I was doing what was right. I was trying to complete my mission."

Another stab of anger shoots through Windblade's spark. “Your mission was to protect me!”

“I know.”

“Chromia, I got _hurt_. I could have died. And I’d have died willingly to protect Metroplex, but you kept saying you wanted to keep me alive. Do you see the contradiction here?”

“I know. I miscalculated. I was… I wanted to get you out of here, away from these people. It clouded—”

“ _Why?_ What protocol could you possibly have been following that made _planting a bomb_ seem like the right choice?” Her voice has, again, risen without her consent. Part of her prays nobody is eavesdropping, but the rest of her is too angry to care.

“It wasn’t protocol. I wasn’t following protocol.” Chromia looks away from her, at the ground beneath their feet. “There are rules, boundaries. I didn’t keep things compartmentalized. My judgement was— compromised.”

There’s a beat, two, before it clicks in Windblade’s fuzzy brain.

“Chromia, I didn’t realize…” She trails off. What is she going to say? _I didn’t realize you felt that way_? _I didn’t realize it was an emotional decision_?

It doesn’t matter, because Chromia shakes her head and looks at Windblade. Her expression is, once again, one of cool professionalism. “I didn’t want you to. And it isn’t an excuse. I’m sorry for intruding, Cityspeaker. Rest well.”

Chromia turns and walks away. She won't transform until she's sure she's out of sight; she has always been too proud to flee from a fight. She turns a corner and the echo of her footsteps fades into the distance, and Windblade tries to think.

*

Later, lying fully sober on her slab while her diagnostics run, Windblade is still thinking. 

She thinks of Chromia’s arms, steady and strong, and the quiet grace with which she holds herself. She thinks of Chromia laughing with Nautica, Chromia asking Nautica obscure questions about xenolinguistics just to watch her face light up. An image pops into Windblade’s mind of Chromia darting in front of her, so fast Windblade’s optics couldn’t track her, to deflect a projectile Windblade hadn’t even seen coming. She’d been a blur, blue motion and sharp edges, and then a sure, solid weight.

There’s a violence in Chromia, she thinks, one she has never understood. Perhaps that was where she went wrong. She trusted without understanding, expected obedience without explaining. She had been so focused on Metroplex, on communicating with a titan, she had lost sight of those who stood beside her.

Her scan completes and the results crowd her optic display. She initiates the appropriate protocols and settles in for recharge. As consciousness leaves her, she thinks of Chromia, her poise, her dependable hands.

*

In the morning, Windblade rises. She watches the dawn and checks on Metroplex. Metroplex talks to her, and she listens and muses aloud, taking comfort in his steady presence. When evening comes, she makes up her mind and seeks out Chromia.

It doesn't take long; Chromia, it turns out, is at her own favourite lookout point. Shortly after arriving on Cybertron, they'd discovered the city's more residential streets are both cleaner and quieter during the days than the bigger centres of activity, and this one, for some reason, has oddly placed benches along its sides. Chromia likes to sit at one particular bench and people-watch. Windblade thinks it's comforting to her, and less stressful than the constant buzz and press of bodies on busy streets.

Chromia looks up as Windblade lands and transforms near her, but she doesn't stand. She offers Windblade a small smile, and her axe, which had been lying across her lap, powers down and disappears.

"Hi," Windblade says, standing in front of her.

Chromia nods. "Hi."

She still makes no move to stand, but Windblade has no intention of holding this conversation while looming over Chromia like... well, like Chromia usually looms over her. She holds out her hands to Chromia, palms up, and Chromia only stares at her for a moment before taking them and letting Windblade pull her to her feet.

They stare at each other for a long, awkward moment. Windblade can't seem to remember any of the things she'd planned to say, and Chromia is clearly waiting for Windblade to break the ice first. She looks unsure of where she stands.

 _Oh, screw it_ , Windblade thinks. She steps forward and reaches up to hold Chromia’s face between her hands. Gently, gently as she can, she kisses her.

Chromia holds very, very still.

Windblade breaks the kiss and steps back, just enough to see her face. “I’m sorry,” she says.

Chromia stares at her. Her optics are very bright. “Windblade—”

“I’m sorry,” she repeats firmly, and Chromia falls silent again. “For not trusting you the way I should have. I should have listened to you, and tried harder to explain my reasons for disagreeing. I shouldn't have told you you were forgiven when I was still…”

She trails off, and Chromia rests a hand on her shoulder. She leans down to rest her forehead against Windblade's, and Windblade's spark flutters a litte. "Please don't try to take the blame for what I did."

"I'm not. I'm taking the blame for my part in it."

"I don't really think you had any part in it."

"Well, tough, because I did."

A smile flashes across Chromia's face, fleeting, and Windblade feels warm all over. She is very sure of this.

"I'm probably going to fight you on that," Chromia says.

Windblade laughs, and doesn't miss the way Chromia lights up. "Of course you are," she replies. "You're the fightiest bot I've ever met. You'd fight me for my air speed record if you could."

Instead of replying, Chromia tilts her head enough to kiss Windblade. Windblade smiles against her and kisses her back. It's as brief and gentle as before, Chromia is so careful with her, but it's good like this – with Chromia leaning so Windblade doesn't have to stand on her toes; with Chromia's weight against her, rather than freezing like she thinks one move will shatter this.

When Chromia pulls away, letting Windblade's hands fall from her faceplates, she whispers, "I missed you."

She looks embarrassed, like she thinks Windblade shouldn't catch her having actual feelings, but Windblade beams at her. "I missed you, too. Sorry for taking so long."

Chromia raises an unimpressed eyebrow ridge. "I don't know if you noticed, but I'm kind of the one who messed up."

Windblade shrugs and puts on her best haughty accent, cultivated during long nights of entertaining herself with Chromia and Nautica. "Ah, but is it not a Cityspeaker's job to rise above such petty, mortal disputes?"

Chromia laughs, a sharp, barking sound, and Windblade beams again. It's getting dark, she notices; sunset has reached Metroplex's horizon while they've been talking.

Making up her mind, Windblade grabs Chromia’s hand. “Come on,” she says, nodding back in the direction of her habitation suite. “It's getting dark, and we've got training tomorrow. Let’s go home.”

Chromia glances down at their hands. She smiles and squeezes Windblade’s fingers. Windblade turns and tugs Chromia along with her. Chromia follows.


End file.
